The Justice Department does not want Cristina's house to become a political bunker if it accepts her house arrest.

If the court ultimately grants Cristina Kirchner house arrest, can the former president go out onto the balcony? Should she face restrictions? How are the guidelines set? Can anyone visit her? These are just some of the concerns surrounding the process that will determine where she will serve her sentence for corruption .

The decision will be signed by Judge Jorge Gorini along with his peers Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu and Andrés Basso, (they await the opinion of Attorney General Diego Luciani on Tuesday), but a central concept frames their determination: in the event of a possible mitigation of the sentence, how to ensure that it is not distorted , so that the apartment at San José 1100 where Cristina requested to serve her house arrest does not become a political bunker, a permanent campaign site for the former president .

The government raised the same concern this Sunday, before Gorini's ruling. Through his chief of staff, Guillermo Francos, he expressed his concerns about the way Cristina will serve her sentence at home. " It's one issue to give her house arrest, and another to allow her conditions that would be out of place : I read in the newspapers that they gave her conditions that allowed her to communicate or go out onto the balcony," criticized the official from Javier Milei's administration.

Cristina announced that she will go to Comodoro Py this Wednesday to comply with the five-day period imposed by Judge Gorini for her to appear in court for the sentence to be enforced, following the Supreme Court's confirmation of the ruling against her.

There are different stages that must be completed . There is still no approved execution file or sentence computation. Only then will the sentencing judge intervene individually, rotating each year among the three members of the Second Federal Oral Court (TOF 2), which conducted the Highways trial and issued a guilty verdict on December 6, 2022.

These past few days, the documents signed by Gorini were in his capacity as president of the Second Federal Court of Justice (TOF) for this current year. However, the decisions and the next step will be collegial resolutions , that is, with the participation of Judges Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu and Andrés Basso.

Pending the ruling of prosecutor Luciani and with a technical report stating that the address at San José 1111 is suitable for house arrest , the next decision will be to determine whether Cristina will remain detained at home or if she will have to serve a few days in a facility that depends on the Federal Penitentiary Service.

In that decision, the central concept being analyzed in Comodoro Py at this time is the need to not distort the nature of house arrest , should that benefit be confirmed. "House arrest is not distorted by complying with the law. But this is an unprecedented case, so common sense must be exercised. For example, going out onto the balcony should not be allowed ," considered a federal judge with years of experience in the execution of sentences.

There are those in the courts who consider the apartment in the Constitución neighborhood to be unsuitable for house arrest. A comparison was made in more than one office at Comodoro Py : when the mitigation of Lázaro Báez's pretrial detention, which was initially scheduled to be held in the private neighborhood of Pilar, was ordered, the K-businessman's own defense team realized the need to find another address "because that one wasn't the most suitable."

Regarding the concrete possibility of house arrest being granted, judicial circles clarify that the law on this matter " is quite poor ," that is, " it does not provide for rules of conduct beyond not being able to leave the home ." At a certain point, one of the purposes of the sentence, which is resocialization through a progressive prison regime, is not met. However, it does meet other purposes of the sentence, such as general prevention, which is to deter society as a whole from committing crimes. It also aims to confirm the validity of the law and confidence in the legal system," said another judge with extensive experience in these processes.

So how could Cristina be granted house arrest without ceasing to express her commitment to serving a corruption sentence? "As long as she deems it appropriate for house arrest," opined a judge who has had to rule on the execution of sentences. However, many agree that this is an unprecedented situation.

In weighing the options and the specific case, a federal judge explained that house arrest is intended for humanitarian reasons, "such as, for example, an elderly person, over 70 years old, or someone who cares for their children, or someone with an incurable illness, in a terminal state. In other words, the legislator wisely said that for these cases, for humanitarian reasons, house arrest should be considered. That is not the case ," he explained.

To that central precept, he added the following explanation: “House arrest is designed for someone who accepts the sentence they were given and is in a difficult health situation. Neither of those situations apply in this case . So, we're faced with a distortion of the concept, a humanitarian concept, which has to do with someone who accepts what they did and says that, for humanitarian reasons, they need to serve their sentence at home. That's not the case here. And granting it because that's who they are isn't an argument. That's not the concept, it's not the idea .”

The other discussion concerns whether or not an electronic bracelet should be placed on the person if house arrest is granted. A sentencing judge told Clarín that first, "the location offered by the defense must be analyzed to see if it meets the conditions for housing there, and the electronic bracelet is used because it's the only control one has oversight of their home. Because house arrests cannot be controlled by any security force. The law on criminal enforcement expressly states this. So the only control is the bracelet."

In this specific case, the same judge ruled that the area of ​​the apartment offered by attorney Carlos Beraldi "is not the most suitable , also understanding that it is affecting all the residents for various reasons, as well as the businesses in the area. Therefore, it would be advisable for the defense to offer a more remote location than that apartment." Judge Gorini will have the final say, following a ruling from prosecutor Luciani.

Finally, there are those who believe that imposing rules would be the viable path if the decision is to move toward house arrest: not only restricting the number of visits on specific days, but also who can and cannot visit the former vice president are just a few concepts being considered. Everything is under study.